1897 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
633 
"THE NEW BLACK MAh.’’ 
WHAT HE IS TRYING TO DO. 
A “Negro Conference” in Alabama. 
Part V. 
Some of the speakers thought that the negroes had 
no use for watches and clocks, but one man argued, 
“ We needs time, we poor cullud people does 1” 
Along with the protests against excursions, came a 
blast against intemperance and the use of tobacco. 
As one man put it: 
“ Snuff an’ tobacco ain’t of no use to nobody. I 
don’t use it, an’ I wants to say along wid dat, we hab 
too many Sundays in one month ! ” 
This brought out another man who said that he had 
not bought a dime’s worth of tobacco in a year. He 
explained, however, that he used plenty of it, and 
raised it all himself. 
To show how free these negroes were to discuss 
personal matters, I will quote one middle-aged man, 
who has accumulated nearly $10 000 worth of property. 
“ We’s gut no chillen at all, an’ we’s ben married 30 
years. I pities myself in dat respeck ! ” Most of the 
negro families seem to be large, though it is claimed 
that the mortality among children is increasing. 
The fertilizer question brought out quite a little 
discussion. Several farmers said that they had about 
given up its use with the help of deep plowing and 
green manures. There were fertilizer cranks in black 
as rabid as some of the whitest fertilizer farmers in 
the North. One man stated that his father raised 
good crops of cotton without fertilizer. This called 
out an older man who said: “I didn’t say dat it 
couldn’t be done, but I says : “Show me a gen’leman 
dat does not use it, an’ I’s gwine to show you a poor 
farmer ! ’ ” 
But for the dialect, a man might shut his eyes and 
imagine himself at a New Jersey institute. In talk¬ 
ing with these farmers individually, I was surprised 
to see how many of them understand what the real 
trouble is with the soil of these “old fields”. The 
Professor of Agriculture at Tuskegee is G. W. Carver. 
He is a graduate of the Iowa Agricultural College, 
and the only colored man in the country who has won 
a degree of master of agricultural science. There is 
no doubt about the quality of the science taught in 
his class-room. The most prominent pictures on the 
walls are the colored plates illustrating an “ old 
field ” in process of repair, which were sent out by the 
Department of Agriculture. I saw essays by young 
colored men showing, by drawing and written argu¬ 
ment, how they would proceed to reclaim these de¬ 
serted places. In fact, Tuskegee is teaching the 
negro to turn to these “old fields”. The shallow 
culture has injured their selling value more than it 
has cut down their producing capacity. Prof. Carver 
has conducted one striking experiment. He took soil 
from one of these abandoned fields and planted seeds 
and bulbs in it just to show what it would do if prop¬ 
erly handled and watered. Nothing in the way of 
fertilizer was used; this deserted soil was simply 
stirred up and watered. The results are wonderful— 
a tremendous growth of strong, green foliage. Here 
was land down beneath the point of the little one- 
mule plow strong enough to warrant its being used 
as a fertilizer. The story is told of the washerwoman 
in a western mining town, who spent her days over 
the washtub without knowing that a few yards be¬ 
neath her feet lay silver enough to make her rich 
“beyond the dreams of avarice”. That wealth lay 
undisturbed until some one who knew it was there came 
to claim it. 
It is just the same way with the southern soil and 
with the southern negro. Ignorant men have lived 
in poverty and paid an immense tribute to the fer¬ 
tilizer dealers, on the upper three inches of the soil. 
Down below them, nearer even than the silver be¬ 
neath the washerwoman, there has ever been a strong 
and grateful soil ready to respond to fair cultivation 
with abundant harvests. The agricultural wealth of 
the South is going to belong to the race that shows 
the greatest energy and skill in getting down into 
the soil after a substitute for the fertilizer bag. Pot¬ 
ash will start clover and cow peas; lime will break 
up the soil; deep plowing will give clover a chance 
to get down and unlock this lazy fertility ! The work¬ 
ing race that is quickest to learn and practice that 
programme will own the South 50 years from now. 
Which race loill that be ? 
In my opinion, “ The New Black Man ” has the best 
chance at present. As one speaker at this conference 
said: “ We has got the muscle an' de face to stand de 
sun 1 ” Give them skill and self-respect in addition 
to these qualities, and I do not see how a white man 
is to compete with them in the Gulf States. 
Can they acquire skill ? Go to Tuskegee and watch 
their work on the farm or in the shop ! One of these 
workmen will start with crude pig iron and the tree 
growing in the forest, and turn out a finished farm 
wagon. Add the leather and varnish, and he will 
make you a handsome carriage. In the blacksmith’s 
shop I found the bones of a horse’s leg and foot neatly 
strung on wires and hung up over the forge. These 
blacksmiths can tell you all about the anatomy of the 
horse. They do not fit the shoe by burning it into 
the hoof. It is all cold fitting. The bricks and the 
mason work, the carpentry on the 30 odd buildings, 
were all done by student labor. The furniture and 
the tinware were all made in the college shops. It is 
skill turned to practical account. It is skill that has 
carried many of these young men into southern shops 
where they are able to work by the side of skilled 
white men. The fact is that a visit to this conference 
would quickly convince any fair-minded man that the 
negro race cannot be kept in ignorance. 
I asked a number of these negroes this question : 
“ Do you think it was a mistake to give your race the 
ballot, as was done immediately after the war ?” Al¬ 
most without exception they replied, “ Yes, I think 
it was a mistake !” These men understand that the 
only hope for the negro lies in true industrial educa¬ 
tion. The negro must remain a laborer for genera¬ 
tions yet. The only education that will make a man 
of him is that which gives him skill. It is the tem¬ 
pering of the crude muscle that changes it to steel. 
“ You can't draw the color line on the gray matter of a 
man's brain" ! h. w c. 
Prizes for House Plans. 
$15 $10 $5 
THE FOLLOWING LETTER WILL EXPLAIN ITSELF. 
Comfortable Farm House Wanted. 
~~ 
Husband and I have been reading about an 
up-to-date barn, in Tub R. N.-Y., and discussing 
Its merits. We often see good plans for barns, 
but I wish to ask for a plan of an up-to-date farm 
house—not a house for the retired farmer, but for 
those who are bearing the heat and burden of the 
day; one where all the employees through seed¬ 
ing, planting, haying, harvesting, thrashing and 
caring for the stock in winter, can be fed and 
lodged conveniently and economically to the 
farmer’s wife, and comfortably to the family the 
year through. There are so many demands upon 
the farm house that it ought to be the best struc¬ 
ture that can be designed. I am not asking for 
an expensive house that would be out of keeping 
with the price of land and farm produce, but for 
a convenient, comfortable, shapely dwelling for 
plain farmers. a farmer’s wife. 
The K. N.-Y. will offer prizes of $15, $10 and $5 for 
the first, second and third best plans for such a house 
as is called for in the above letter. 
We want drawings or photographs and estimates 
of cost. 
The contest will close on December 1, 1897. 
The judges will be the woman who wrote the above 
letter, the editor of The R. N.-Y., and a third party 
to be selected by the two first-named judges. 
Put on your thinking cap, and build your farm castle 
AMONG THE MARKETMEN. 
WHAT I SEE AND HEAR. 
A curious condition of things is reported by some 
apple dealers. The crop, as a whole, is rather short, 
but in some parts of the country, notably the South¬ 
west, there is a good crop. Buyers have gone into 
these regions of good crops and, apparently, their 
desire to buy apples has made the growers slow to 
sell. They, evidently, reason that there is a great 
shortage, and the good prices for which some ship¬ 
ments abroad have sold lead them to great expecta¬ 
tions as to future prices. There is little doubt that 
choice fruit will bring good prices, but with such an 
abundance of other fruits, extravagant prices cannot 
be expected. 
X t X 
Chas. Forster, an extensive apple exporter, just 
received a cable dispatch from the first sale of winter 
apples in the English market. These apples came 
from the Southwest. The report was to the effect 
that the quality was fine but the condition poor. 
1'he latter was, perhaps, to be expected considering 
the time of year and the weather we have had, which 
has been extremely unfavorable. The prices at which 
they were sold netted in New York from $1.29 to 
$2.77 per barrel. Each lot of apples is numbered, and 
as soon as they are sold on the other side, the results 
of the sale are cabled over here, and checks for the 
amounts due are sent to the shippers. I was shown 
a list of the lots sent by the steamer Lucania, a cable 
report on which had just been received, and checks 
for which were being made out for the owners. 
Checks went from here to each shipper 11 days after 
the vessel sailed, quicker returns than those made 
by many commission merchants. Fuller returns of 
these sales are sent later by mail when full particu¬ 
lars of the sales are received. “ See what this busi¬ 
ness has come to,” said Mr. Forster, pointing to the 
number of barrels included in the different lots in 
this shipment; “ they are sending apples to Europe in 
pretty small lots Here is one consisting of only nine 
barrels.” Yet this small lot is sold on its merits the 
same as larger lots. But larger lots are preferable. 
Only the choicest apples, well assorted and carefully 
packed in full-sized barrels should be exported. It 
costs too much to send apples abroad, to pay expenses 
on anything inferior. 
X t t 
A good name goes a long way in selling any article, 
and sometimes that same good name is used to help 
sell some other article. Example of this are the 
numerous signs—DELAWARE PEACHES—we see on 
vendors’ stands. These peaches have a good name in 
market. The crop was short this year, and of in¬ 
ferior quality; yet large quantities were sold under 
this name, even long after the few Delawares that 
were shipped were all out of market. This deception 
is not so bad as some—if it is allowable to make dif¬ 
ferent grades of deceit—for the peaches from New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania and western Maryland that 
were sold under this name were good fruit, probably 
just about as good as Delawares ever were. But how 
will the fruit from the latter States ever acquire a 
reputation unless it be sold for what it is ? Of course, 
the growers are not responsible for this, neither are 
the wholesalers, as a general thing ; it is the retailers 
who are guilty of this practice. 
X t X 
We haven’t had much to say about fraudulent com¬ 
mission merchants lately ; not that the race has died 
out, for there seem to be as many as ever, but I take 
it that our older readers have learned to shun them. 
But for the benefit of newer readers, it may be neces¬ 
sary to repeat some of our old-time warnings. A 
farmer of central New York received some very nice 
letters from The Kaufman Company, 1176% Bedford 
Avenue, Brooklyn, telling of the great advantages 
possessed by the company for selling choice butter, 
cheese, eggs and poultry. The inducements were so 
alluring and the promises so specious that shipments 
were made. That was the last ever heard from the 
“ company.” The farmer has just been to the city. 
He failed to find the “company” at that address or 
at any other. What he did find was a barber shop 
kept by an honest-appaaring German, who was 
thunderstruck to find that he had been made the 
innocent means of helping on a fraud. The perpe¬ 
trators of the swindle had simply arranged with him 
to care for any express packages that might come for 
them, giving a plausible reason for wishing to make 
the arrangement, and probably, paying him a little 
something for his trouble. His wife declared that 
she knew something was wrong, and both asserted 
that they’d have nothing more of that sort. This is 
an old dodge, and I have known of these frauds send¬ 
ing out their correspondence from cigar stores, flat 
houses and other places. They either make arrange¬ 
ments with some one at the address given, to receive 
the goods, or leave orders to have them delivered at 
some other place, usually the latter. The principals 
can seldom be found. They get the names of victims 
by sneaking around commission stores and stealing 
them from the packages of goods received. They 
then send out finely worded circulars or letters in 
which extravagant promises are made which, of 
course, are never intended to be kept. In the case 
cited above, the chief of police was visited, and he 
said that he had no doubt that he could catch the 
swindlers in two or three days, but the farmer would 
have to stay to appear against them. This the latter 
said he couldn’t do, so nothing was done. It isn’t 
likely that these swindlers will continue to do busi¬ 
ness long at that address or under that name, but 
will probably try the same tricks somewhere else 
and under a different name. And there are dozens 
more of the same kind. Don’t be caught by them! 
_ f. h. y. 
BUSINESS BITS. 
A reliable jobber wants prices on 100 barrels Triumph potatoes. 
Send care The R. N.-Y. 
The American Live Stock Co., 24 State Street, New York, is a 
company ol experienced live slock men who are making a busi¬ 
ness of buying live stock for foreign and domestic customers on 
commission. 
Don’t let your animals choke on whole roots. Cutters are now 
made to slice them so that stock cannot choke on them. The 
cutter also shakes out all dirt and gravel, doing away with one 
of the objections to root feeding. Send to O. E. Thompson & Son, 
17 River Street, Ypsilanti, Mich., for descriptive circulars of their 
cutter. 
Now is the time to prepare for winter cold, and to make sure 
that the roofs are tight and side cracks covered to keep out the 
cold and wet. The poultryhouse and pig pen should especially 
be looked after. For cheap and durable roofing and sidelining, 
Swan’s tarred felt roofing is just the thing. It’s waterproof, 
fireproof, and windproof. For samples, address A. F. Swan, 102 
Fulton Street, New York. 
If there ever was, there is now no longer any doubt about the 
advantage of having plenty of fresh water before the cows in the 
stable, so that they may drink as often and as much as they 
need. Those who have tried it say that it pays for the work and 
expense of putting in the conveniences for it, in the first three 
months. For estimates of putting in the watering device, address 
Carroll, Arnold & Co., Pawling, N. Y. 
